The BBWAA gets better!
by aap212 on Dec 10, 2008 4:19 PM EST
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I'm sure most of you know by now, but the BBWAA has added Rob Neyer and Keith Law of ESPN.com and Christina Kahrl and Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus to its ranks. Now I know some of you like to bash one or two of the aforementioned names, but I think we can all agree this is a very good thing. Not only are four very good writers (ones who are better than most of the group they're joining) and good analysts being added to the group that determines Hall of Fame inductions and end of season awards, but for the mainstream media to accept four predominantly internet-based writers is a big step in the right direction. These are direct peers of Sickels. The best newspaper baseball writer in the country (Posnanski) is a blogger--it's about time the best bloggers and internet columnists get a voice on par with the Murray Chass types of the world.
In short: Hooray!
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One of them is most certainly not good
Founder of the Johnny Giavotella fan club.
by doublestix on Dec 10, 2008 4:22 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
My reaction too.
Why not Goldman or some other history type?
It's not the results, it's how you look going about those results -- Tim McCarver
by WaddellCanseco on Dec 10, 2008 5:19 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Carroll is excellent
what are you people talking about?
by alskor on Dec 10, 2008 5:23 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Carroll is most like a beat writer
I really like him, but also, he’s working the beat and providing news, and in a way that no one else does.
by aap212 on Dec 10, 2008 5:24 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
What I want to know is....
How this will effect KLaw. As an avid reader of his, especially the chats, I always get a kick out of him bashing the main stream baseball media for being stuck in the stats of the 1950’s and ignoring so many of the new metrics used to evaluate players. Now that he is part of the BBRAA, I wonder how that will change. Also, I guess he can’t call them the BBRAA anymore.
by joltinjoe on Dec 10, 2008 4:22 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
KLaw
I don’t think this will change him one bit. I enjoy reading his stuff (even when I don’t agree) and I think something like this is not enough to change his mind on things. Instead of 100% of MVP voters, he will now think 98% don’t know what they’re doing.
by count sutton on Dec 10, 2008 4:28 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I enjoy all four
I know everyone hates on Keith Law, but I find him refreshingly honest.
Remember: baseball guys... baseball...
by Metty5 on Dec 10, 2008 4:29 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
I don't know about honest
but he’s different and that can be a good thing sometimes.
1941 .406
by FrozenTed9 on Dec 10, 2008 4:37 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I'm with you
But I wanted to flame-proof the thread a bit, because this isn’t the occasion for it.
I will say, though, that Law seems to get the most heated of haters.
by aap212 on Dec 10, 2008 4:39 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
he reminds me of what succeeds in sports talk radio
really extreme opinions and sell them hard. To me he still comes off as an MBA exaggerating everything because it got him a gig at ESPN and he is making a lot of money. IIRC, among his genius is trashing David Price and Dustin Pedroia.
by Lovejoy on Dec 10, 2008 10:23 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
What got him his gig
Was probably working in the front office of the Blue Jays, not his Harvard MBA.
Remember: baseball guys... baseball...
by Metty5 on Dec 10, 2008 11:17 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
True. The Blue Jay thing didn’t end well although who knows what the story was there.
by Lovejoy on Dec 10, 2008 11:42 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Law
while I generally don’t value his opinions, you do have to give him credit for at least sticking to his guns all the time.
by ajake57 on Dec 10, 2008 11:17 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
i like law too
as a stats guy who has actual scout’s training, he is definitely an odd fish. kind of like our own john sickels, actually—but there aren’t too many like him floating around. like any scout, he has his favorites and his not-so-favorites, and his track record has hits and misses, but he also backs up his opinions with some statistical evidence. seems like he does a good job for the most part.
by jpahk on Dec 11, 2008 3:38 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Meh
I haven’t read these guys consistently since they went the pay route.
Formerly Uncle Charlie of Minor League Ball
by Yakker on Dec 10, 2008 4:37 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
Free
For whatever the reason, KLaw, Neyer, Gammons, and Olney have had their blogs freed from behind the wall for the past few weeks. I haven’t checked about the others (Stark, Crasnick) yet, but I’d imagine that’s the case.
by GuyinNY on Dec 10, 2008 6:24 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Thanks
For the tip. Although they’d have to pay me to get me to read Olney’s stuff.
And does ESPN still go bonkers when you hit their front page? With all the bells, whistles, and flashing lights it’s like I’m at an old Pink Floyd show. No thanks.
Formerly Uncle Charlie of Minor League Ball
by Yakker on Dec 10, 2008 6:39 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Oh god
Olney is the worst thing Ive ever read.
by alskor on Dec 11, 2008 12:57 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
???
Why, pray tell? Buster offers thoughtful analysis, and while he may not be sabermetrically inclined, he definitely has plenty of connections and breaks his fair share of stories.
by GuyinNY on Dec 11, 2008 12:20 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
He has good sources
but his analysis is consistently awful
by alskor on Dec 11, 2008 1:34 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
why do people hate on KLaw??
The dude is hilarious!
by joltinjoe on Dec 10, 2008 5:00 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
Anything...
that improves the chances of Edgar Martinez being enshrined in the Hall is fine by me.
by slamcactus on Dec 10, 2008 5:34 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
+1
If Edgar hurt his team by playing dreadful defense somewhere on the field, he’d have a lot more support from the idiots at the BBWAA.
by DrunkIrish on Dec 10, 2008 6:08 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Fielding
Yes, he would. Because it would have allowed his manager to use the DH to rest regulars. A DH really, REALLY has to perform at the plate. Do you really think that Edgar would have been >-17.5 in the field?
by GuyinNY on Dec 10, 2008 6:26 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Does .312/.418/.515 do it for ya?
That’s for his career. Up to age 41.
Edgar also played the field for the first half of his career, though he’s primarily remembered as a DH.
by DrunkIrish on Dec 10, 2008 7:04 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I never said I was opposed to Edgar for the HOF ;)
Honestly, I see Martinez as a litmus test for the Hall. If a bat like his can’t make it, what DH could? Martinez suffers from having a relatively low number of HOF seasons (8 by my count, 10 if you’d like to push it), without much in the way of career padding. Martinez didn’t take off till he was a DH, and while he did post a 147 OPS+, he did that in the heart of the Steroid Era, when big numbers (even relative to league average) are more easily attainable. Martinez is also weak on career standards, which while it may not be his fault, is certainly a fact he must contend with.
All that having been said, I think there’s probably a place for Edgar in the HOF. There’s very little in the way of standards for a DH in the HOF (other than the votes on Harold Baines and MAYBE Don Baylor). My inclination is that for a DH to be a slam dunk, he’s going to have to be an utterly sublime hitter, something to the effect of 320/420/550 on his career. Ultimately, I expect DH voting to evolve in a way similar to closer voting. Only the very best of the best will be allowed in, since they’re largely viewed as something than “regular” position players or starting pitchers. I doubt the Mike Mussina of DH’s will get in. However, Edgar is more the Eck of DH’s, and I do there will be a place for him.
P.S. We’re going to see Frank Thomas get let into the HOF, and he really was a DH masquerading as a 1b until his early 30’s. :p
by GuyinNY on Dec 11, 2008 12:19 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I agree..
Edgar Martinez absolutely deserves it, but it’s going to be an uphill battle unless the BBWAA gets significantly smarter in the next few years. Next year’s his first on the ballot, and I don’t really expect him to make it that quickly.
As far as HOF-worthy seasons go, I count 11. The lowest OPS of those 11 full seasons was 132, and it came in 1990 when Edgar was a solid defensive 3B at the tail end of the ’80s deadball era.
On the steroid era, that’s exactly what OPS+ was made to correct for. It’s OPS relative to league average, so it corrects for the fact that Edgar’s heyday came at a time when a slap-hitting CF like Brady Anderson could juice for a year and hit 50 bombs. He was still one of the 5-10 very best hitters alive when he was playing.
by slamcactus on Dec 13, 2008 2:55 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Hrmm...
While I haven’t seen any studies to verify this, there is a strong popular sentiment that it’s easier to put up a “big” OPS+ in high offense eras. As Edgar has a few of these, I’d imagine they drag up his career stats, since the vast majority of his PA’s occurred in the Steroid Era. However, that’s neither here nor there. We agree that Edgar is a HOF’r, though I’m surprised to hear Edgar was ever a solid 3b defensively. This is genuine surprise, and I hadn’t heard it before. Why was he moved off? Injury? Age? I don’t recall the M’s having anybody that great at 3b in the 90’s who could have moved him off, unless you really liked Mike Blowers.
by GuyinNY on Dec 13, 2008 4:33 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Nope.
I’ve never head of this ‘strong popular sentiment’ about OPS+ before, but if it exists, it’s completely wrong.
OPS+ adjusts for era. If anything, it was a lot easier to put up big numbers relative to league average in earlier decades, because teams didn’t really start doing any kind advanced statistical analysis until the mid-80s. There have been fewer Willie Bloomquist-type players getting regular playing time in the past 20 years than in any other era of MLB.
There’s also a wider net of talent now than there ever was before, so the gap between elite hitters and the rest of the pack has narrowed considerably, and the bottom half of the MLB talent pool has been MUCH better in the past 20 years than at any point in the game’s history.
A really big OPS+ in recent years is more impressive than it was in earlier decades. The era in which Edgar Martinez enjoyed his best years hurt him overall, and he still comes out looking damn good.
As far as Edgar as a 3B, he lost almost all of the 1993 season to injury, and then got injured again in ‘94 after a hard slide. The Ms decided they wanted his bat in the lineup in ’95 and pulled him off the field. It was entirely injury related. He was never going to win any gold gloves, but he really wasn’t bad. The rest, as they say, is history.
by slamcactus on Dec 13, 2008 8:08 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Just...
for some context, if you look at the 20 best offensive seasons in MLB history by OPS+, 16 of them occurred before the year 1958, and the 4 that didn’t all belong to Barry Bonds.
It’s much harder to be a lot better than everyone else in baseball now than it used to be.
God, steroids or no, Barry Bonds was just amazing.
by slamcactus on Dec 13, 2008 8:28 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Edgar...
22nd highest OBP of all time. 35th highest OPS. 6 seasons in the top-5 OPS+ in the league. 1 season at #1. 9 seasons in the top 10. Edgar Martinez is one of the 50 or so greatest hitters of all time. He deserves to be in the hall. By career standards, he may fall short, which is ridiculous seeing as he didn’t debut until 27 when he was pretty clearly ready at 23.
by slamcactus on Dec 10, 2008 9:13 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
The real improvement...
will happen when they start to kick people out of the BBWAA. Like people who refuse to vote for great players getting into the HOF just because they want to make sure no ever gets 100% of the vote. Or the person who voted for Walt Weiss to get into the HOF. Anyone who left Pujols off last season’s NL MVP list also.
"My mom always taught me it's better to laugh at yourself than to laugh at others. She was so wrong. ;)" -Pedrophile
by Boxkutter on Dec 10, 2008 6:11 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
Kahrl
wrote some of the worst stuff I’ve read breaking down the NL central recently.
by Lovejoy on Dec 10, 2008 10:25 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
NL Central
Not familiar with her work in the Central, but she’s a very good writer almost all the time. Her Transaction Analyses are one of the reasons I have no problem with subscribing to BP (the other reasons being Will Carrol and KG).
by demondeaconsbaseball on Dec 11, 2008 12:09 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
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